


Not Your Average Tuesday

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-03-29 14:50:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3900298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So apparently Bruce and Clark have this thing where every so often they fall into bed together, which is fine, right? No judgment. Except Hal was really not looking to be invited to join them, and sure as hell couldn't have predicted what would happen when he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Oh. . . _God_ ," Hal gasped, though the last was less an articulate syllable than a choke of air wrung from his body. His lungs didn't feel like they had enough space for much more. His body didn't have space for much more. The cock in him was too huge, too beyond anything he had ever felt. " _Fuck_ ," he whimpered.

Clark's hands were braced on his sides, caressing him, holding him up. "Yeah?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Hal groaned. Clark was fucking him like he had just invented the idea of fucking, his fingers gripping Hal's ass now to the point of pain, and if he were being honest with himself — and really, when was a better time for being honest with yourself than when an 8-inch cock was rearranging your internal organs — he was a little surprised that Clark liked it this rough. Or was capable of it, really. Wasn't Clark supposed to be the nice one? And if he and Bruce were good-cop/bad-copping this situation, should he be a little concerned about the bad cop over there, watching them with hungry eyes?

He had always thought Clark would be the caring, sensitive type in bed. He would be tossing that assumption overboard along with quite a few others, like the one where he had assumed that the last thing that would happen to his Tuesday was being invited to Bruce Wayne's pleasure palace for a marathon night of fucking with two of the most gorgeous men on the face of the planet, who apparently had this whole mildly freaky sex life? that he had never imagined?? But he was sure as hell going to be doing a lot of imagining after this, because—

"Oh _Jesus_ ," he moaned, as Clark shifted and somehow, through some miracle of astrophysics, found an even better spot inside him. His cock was finding places Hal hadn't even known existed inside of him, and Hal let himself collapse onto the bed. His own cock was so swollen, so aching. He could feel it dripping, too. 

"Mm," Bruce said, or some noise like that. He was watching Hal's cock too. "It's good, isn't it?"

"God," Hal panted again, and the edge of Bruce's lip quirked upward. "I can't—I'm—"

"You can come on that cock," Bruce was saying, just conversationally. "It's big enough, and he should be able to milk you enough for it. Think you can come like that, without a hand on you?"

Hal just whimpered again, and fisted the sheets on this massive island of a bed. "We'll call that a yes," Bruce said, with another one of those smirks. 

"Bastard," Hal managed, but he wasn't sure which one of them he was talking to. Clark was fucking him down into the mattress now, and the slide of the sheets against his cock felt so good. He couldn't even push back against Clark's cock to get any friction going, though, because Clark was holding him too hard, just using him. Bruce was running his hand along Clark's side now, but his eyes were still watching Hal. 

_Hold on, you can hold on, do not fucking lose it here_ , Hal berated himself. He could make himself last just a little bit longer—just a bit—just long enough to feel—

"I can't, I can't," Hal panted. He had never come just from this, never come without a hand on him. Bruce was watching his cock with interest.

"I wonder what it looks like when you come," he said.

" _Shit_ ," Clark said, just a small breath of sound. Hal didn't want to think about the bruises he would see tomorrow, all up and down him, where Clark was gripping him. 

"I got you," Bruce said, and the hand that was running down Clark's side moved lower. He had shifted so his hand was cupping Clark's balls, cradling them. Hal could feel the brush of Bruce's fingers against his own balls, and it felt so good—was no one ever going to touch him? Was that the game—bring someone here and torture them?

"He likes this," Bruce said. "Needs to be milked, just like this." And Hal could feel him kneading Clark's balls, squeezing that giant sac that felt like it was bruising him too as it smacked against his ass.

Clark gave another small shift that shot stars behind his eyelids, and that was it, Hal was no longer in control of the cum that was now dribbling out his cock onto the sheets. "Jesus—fuck— _God_ —" he choked, as his cock pulsed and betrayed him.

"Will you look at that," Bruce remarked. 

It was the same calm Bruce had shown all night long. Clark had flown them here, and wasn't there something about he really was not supposed to be flying people around at those kinds of speeds? As in, sound medical reasons humans did not fly across the planet at supersonic speeds? Evidently they were giving that a whatever. But the minute they had touched down, Clark's mouth had been on him, Clark's hands on his body. Hal's fingers had been shaking, he was fumbling so fast with his clothes.

"Shh," Bruce's calming voice had said. Bruce was pressed against his back. The two of them were enfolding him, encircling him. "We've got you." And Bruce's deft hands had been at his pants, his shirt.

Bruce's voice was murmuring things now, things Hal couldn't hear, and Clark's noises were getting louder. "Coming," Clark panted. "Can't—stop it—"

Hal felt a warm wet surge, and the force of it pushed another wave of cum out of him. "Oh God," he moaned, and Clark was moaning too, head thrown back, and there was. . . holy shit. Something was running down his leg, there was. . . was that Clark? He was—

"Let go, Kal, he can take it, let him have all of it."

"Please," Clark whispered, and Hal could feel him shake against him. He no longer knew whose hands were on him, or where. He was limp, destroyed, bones wracked and liquefied and running out him, or maybe that was just more of Clark's cum soaking him, soaking the sheets, soaking everything. He fell forward, an inch from blacking out. 

Clark eased his cock out, and Hal moaned again at that. That cock felt just as hard as it had going in. Clark gave another groan, and there was a warm splatter on Hal's backside, another quiver of Clark pressing against him. He had come some more, on top of him this time. The bed shook as Clark collapsed next to him. 

The room held only their labored breath for a few minutes, until Hal raised a bleary head. "Oh my fucking _God_ ," he said.

There was a lazy smack of his ass. "Nah, Clark's fine." 

Hal narrowed his eyes at the smirking face beside him. Clark was flushed, radiant, beautiful. How did someone manage to look that beautiful, when he himself was a sweaty wreck? "Come here," Hal murmured, and propping on his elbows, bent his head to Clark. Their kiss was soft, Clark's tongue brushing his as gentle as his cock had been brutal.

"You're still hard," he said, glancing down at the still-purpled swell of Clark's magnificent cock. It was slick with cum, but Hal could see it practically throbbing.

"He'll be like that for hours," Bruce said. Bruce was stretched at the head of the bed, just watching them. 

"Oh yeah? And what about yourself?"

"Oh, I don't expect I'll last too much longer."

"Let's see about that," Clark said, hoisting himself up toward Bruce. He wrapped himself around Bruce's back, and bent to kiss him. Hal watched them kiss, the strange obscene intimacy of it. He felt like maybe he should look away, but couldn't. 

He studied Bruce's cock. As long and thick as the rest of him, full of prominent veins and ridges where Clark's was smooth. He wanted to touch it, but didn't dare. No one had told him what he could or could not touch in this bed, but he wasn't an idiot either. Clark's mouth was at Bruce's ear.

"You want to come, baby?"

"Mm," Bruce was murmuring. His eyes were sliding shut.

"Okay, but I need you not to, all right?" Clark's fingertips were just brushing along Bruce's side, the top of his thighs, the bit of fur on his balls. "I need you just to stay like this. Can you do that?"

"No," Bruce whispered, and Hal saw the tightening of Clark's arm around him.

"Yes you can. For me." Clark's fingers were just dancing on the tip of Bruce's cock now, and for the first time Hal saw Bruce lose it, just a little. He stiffened in Clark's arms, arched his head back. His cock jerked and wobbled. 

"No," Clark said. "Don't come."

 _Come on, stop_ , Hal thought, because for fuck's sake, the man had been watching them fuck for hours, he hadn't come at all, and he was clearly at the point of pain. Finally Clark took one finger and just ran it lightly up and down the intense venous topography of that shaft.

"Please, I need—" 

Hal's fingers dug into the sheets at the crack in Bruce's voice. "No," Clark said. "Just wait."

Hal reached a hand for Bruce, because he couldn't just watch—he could wrap his hand around that gorgeous cock, give him some relief, something to fuck.

"No," Clark said sharply, but to him, not Bruce. "That isn't what he wants."

Hal subsided. Clark's finger was now just tapping the head of Bruce's cock, ever so lightly. 

"Tell me you can hold out for me," he was saying. "Just hold, right here, right here, for as long as I tell you."

Bruce's breathing was so loud Hal was getting worried. He wondered what his heart sounded like, to Clark. 

"I need—"

"I said, _no_." Now Clark's index finger was just rubbing, rubbing a small circle, and Bruce—

" _Fuck!_ " he shouted, and Hal was sure no one but Clark could have held that body as it arched clean off the bed, as cum spurted across his chest, catching a bit of Clark's shoulder, sliding down to his fingers.

 _He needs the denial_ , Hal thought in wonder, watching the two of them, watching Clark cradle Bruce's body as it came down from its high, watching the tenderness with which he kissed Bruce's neck, his jaw. His own cock gave a sympathetic pulse, a last spasmodic firing of a stray neuron of pleasure, awakened at the sight of Bruce's. 

He crawled forward, just wanting to be closer to them, and a hand landed on his head, stroking it. He couldn't have told you whose. 

"Get some rest," said a voice in his ear. "Round three is where it really gets interesting."


	2. Chapter 2

He woke at the lip of dawn, as the room shifted into sunlight. It wasn't that he didn't try to sleep in, but military training was hard to beat out of your body, and no matter when he went to sleep, he was up with the dawn the next day — or in this case, three hours later.

He eased out of the wide wreck of the bed and padded to the bathroom, which he had not been paying enough attention to yesterday, but it was a thing of beauty, and then made his way to what seemed like the front of the house. It was a huge open floorplan of a place, and mainly appeared to be windows, all of them looking out on the ocean. The porch was facing the lush golden dawn spilling across the water, and there was a lone figure leaning against one of the porch pillars, watching the dawn. There was a smell of coffee from the mug he was sipping, and a more acrid scent from the cigarette in his other hand. 

"Good morning," Bruce said, without turning around.

"That's the first time I've ever seen you do something bad for you," Hal said, with a nod at the cigarette.

"Stick around," Bruce said. He took another drag, then closed his eyes, leaning his head against the pillar.

"This may be the most beautiful view I've ever seen."

"Yes," Bruce agreed, like it belonged to somebody else. "It is at that. There are bathrobes in the guest rooms, if you want to grab one."

"Oh," Hal said. "Sorry. I didn't—"

"I'm not complaining. There's more than one definition of a beautiful view. I just thought you might be cold."

Hal had pulled on his underwear when he had gotten up, and counted himself lucky to have found them. He had searched all over the bedroom, trying to be as quiet as he could, and then found them in the last place he would have thought to search — on top of his neatly folded clothes, which were on a chair by the window. He had definitely not done that. 

"Didn't expect you up this early," Bruce said. 

"Same to you."

"I'm not up, I just haven't been to sleep yet. I'll go to bed in a bit. I always sleep well here."

Hal glanced at the coffee, wondering how the man was going to sleep after he chugged that down, but he offered no comment. "There's coffee in the kitchen if you want some," Bruce said, flicking his cigarette off the porch. "Food somewhere too, probably."

"Well. . . thanks, but I think I'm going to go ahead and head on home."

Bruce looked at him in surprise. "Why?"

Hal sighed. "Look. I can't. . . I don't know how to say thank you for last night, or what exactly are the words, but it was great, it was amazing, and I—"

"Thank you would be exactly the wrong words."

"Yeah. Well, my point is, I'm trying not to be a selfish dick here, which is kind of new territory for me. I should probably head out and let you. . . . you know, give you guys some time alone."

"Ah," Bruce said, over top of his coffee. "I see."

"Yeah. So. . ."

"It's not like that."

"What's not like what?"

"My relationship with Clark. It isn't like that, and we don't require time alone. We are. . . there are lots of words for it, but brothers is close enough."

Hal squinted out at the sunrise. "Yeah, okay, I don't have a brother. But I'm thinking, if I did, I probably wouldn't get up to some of the things you guys do."

Bruce laughed quietly. "Point taken."

"So while you guys get some brotherly time in, I'm gonna head home."

"Clark will be disappointed you left while he was asleep."

Hal wondered how disappointed anyone would be to wake up in a place like this, to Bruce wearing nothing but a fluffy monogrammed bathrobe. His hair was a bit ruffled, and he was in need of a shave already, and Hal had never seen anyone looking quite so gorgeous, bathed in early morning light. Talk about your beautiful view.

"If I asked you to stay," Bruce said, "would you?"

Hal leaned against the opposite pillar. "Maybe," he said. "But I get a question first."

"Fire away."

"Whose idea was it to invite me here?"

Bruce studied the sunrise. "Clark's," he said. "But that's not the question you should be asking."

"And what's the question I should be asking?"

"You should ask, why did he do it?"

"Okay. Why did he?"

"Because he thought it would please me."

Bruce's voice was matter-of-fact, but when was it not? Only a couple of times last night—or this morning, more like—had he seen Bruce lose his composure. Driven to the edge of pleasure, undone by the denial he so enjoyed. They were neither of them anything like he had thought they would be, in bed. He had always thought Bruce would be some whip-cracking leather dom, some loudly sensual hedonist who gave himself up to pleasure. And maybe he did, but not in the way Hal had thought—in an infinitely quieter way, which somehow managed to be the hottest thing Hal had ever seen. He had wanted so badly to touch. 

"Okay," Hal said, his throat gone a little tight. That had not been what he had expected to hear. "So do you guys. . . is this something you do a lot of?"

Bruce arched a brow, and Hal quickly clarified. "Invite someone out here, I mean."

"No. We've never done that before. And we don't do the other very often, either."

"You mean, the brother time."

"If that's what you want to call it." Bruce drank more coffee, and watched the pinks in the sunrise shift to golds as the sun rose fractionally higher. "Kryptonians don't. . . well. Their sex drive is very high, as a rule."

"No kidding, I can barely walk."

"Yes, he does tend to have that effect."

"But," Hal said.

"But what?"

"No, what you said. Sounded like there was a 'but' in there, somewhere."

"Oh. Yes. It was only this: Kryptonians don't tend to form attachments, of that sort. Or at least, not in the way that humans do. If you read any of their lore, their literature, you'll see what I mean. Certain ideas, certain concepts, are foreign to them. So what you were imagining, between the two of us, it isn't like that. When I used the term 'brother' — that's the word a Kryptonian would use."

"Okay, but that Kryptonian in there was raised in Kansas."

"Some things you don't change." Bruce was still watching the view, not him, and it was the same matter-of-factness as before. And then he turned, and Hal had the full attention of those uncomfortable eyes. 

"So, that was more than just one question you got answered. I think I get one too."

"Sure, have at it. I don't have any interesting secrets, though."

"Would you prefer me to make myself scarce for a few hours? I don't have the convenience of flying out of here the way you and Clark do, but I can take a leisurely swim, amuse myself down on the beach for most of the day if you'd like. Is that what you want?"

Hal blinked at him. "What are you talking about? Why would I want that?"

"So you could have some time alone with Clark."

His laugh was more of an astonished whuff of air. "Ah, no, we're good. What the hell would make you think that?"

Bruce shrugged, and turned back to the view. "Seriously," Hal persisted. "That's just stupid. I don't want you not around, for fuck's sake. Why did you ask me that?"

"It seemed like the question to ask."

"A fucking stupid question. You're the one who could barely bring yourself to touch me, last night. I'm not complaining about being the fucktoy to keep Clark entertained, I'm just saying."

Bruce was no longer looking at the view. "Who taught you that?" he said, and he sounded angry.

"Taught me what?"

"To think of yourself that way? Tell me who the fuck taught you that."

Hal froze. It occurred to him that outside of last night, he had never heard Bruce swear, and last night had been during sex. He shook his head. "I don't. . . sorry," he said. His chest was pounding.

Bruce turned to go back into the house, but he stopped, his shoulder touching Hal's. "You're here because I wanted you to be here," he said softly. "And if I didn't reach for you last night, it's because if there's something I really want, then denial gets me off, or didn't you pick up on that?"

He was gone, headed back to the kitchen, and Hal took quick six seconds to rearrange his thoughts about the world, his life, and the nature of the observable universe. He pretty much had it figured out by the time Bruce came back. "You don't need to worry about hot water for showers," Bruce said. His voice was back to the cordial host, his face a mask again. "There's something of an endless supply. You're also welcome to use the lagoon, which stays relatively warm. Don't use soap in the lagoon though, it's bad for the ecosystem."

Without letting himself think about it, Hal reached for the belt on Bruce's bathrobe and looped his hand in it. Bruce looked down at the hand. 

"You didn't ask me why I said yes," Hal said.

Bruce's eyes were grave. "No one says no to Clark."

"I said yes to you."

Bruce was still looking at the hand holding onto his belt. _The problem isn't grabbing onto a tiger_ , one of his flight instructors had told him once, _the problem is what he does to you when you let go_. So maybe the trick was not to let go. Hal used the belt to pull Bruce closer. Hal leaned in, a bit awkwardly, and brushed his lips against the side of Bruce's face. For a second he thought Bruce was just going to stand there and not respond, and then he felt it—felt Bruce moving his face toward Hal's, a small hesitant movement. 

Their lips brushed, and Hal moved his hand from the belt to the back of Bruce's neck. It was more than a bit hilarious. They had just shared one of the wilder nights of Hal's life, not twenty feet away in that bedroom, but somehow this felt shy and tentative. There was no audience here. Bruce was kissing him now, really kissing him. Hal was pressed against the pillar, and he let his hands roam inside the bathrobe a little. "Is this okay?" he whispered.

"It was always okay," Bruce said.

Bruce's lips were rough, a bit chapped. He tasted like coffee and cigarettes, and Hal wanted to swallow his cock until his insides were coated with cum, but that was probably not the sort of thing he should say out loud. "Come here," Bruce said, tugging at his hand. He was leading him over to the corner of the porch, where there was a wide sort of platform bed, suspended on ropes from the ceiling. It was wide enough for two, and Bruce was pulling him down beside him. 

There was a breeze off the water, and Hal's skin prickled at it. Bruce pulled up the throws and blankets on the bed, covering them, and Hal happily burrowed inside. Bruce still had on his bathrobe. "Take this off?" Hal whispered, and Bruce nodded.

They touched and explored and kissed, quietly. Bruce was running his hands up and down Hal's side, his arms. "You're not wearing your ring," he said.

"Yeah. I tend to flail around when I sleep, and—"

"I noticed."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, I've clocked myself in the face a couple of times if I wear it when I sleep. It's pretty heavy, and it's not a fun way to wake up."

Bruce was laughing softly. "You idiot," he said. 

"Yeah, I know. Can we. . . kiss some more?"

"All you want." 

Bruce was a shockingly good kisser. Or maybe he wasn't, Hal couldn't tell. There wasn't any particular technique to anything they were doing, but Bruce just kissed the way Hal did, and slid his tongue against Hal's the exact way Hal did, and generally let Hal decide how things were going to go. Bruce did slip a hand in his underwear, and Hal tried to be cool about it, and let him do it slow, when really Hal just wanted to kick them off and start grinding on top of that beautiful body. 

Bruce nudged a thigh in between Hal's legs, and Hal took the hint and did sort of the same for him, and along with kissing they were rubbing against something now. 

"Hey," Hal whispered. "Is this. . . I mean, do you want me to do something more exciting here?" _Other than lie here and hump your leg_ , was what he meant, because he couldn't help but think about Clark, and all his prowess.

Bruce shook his head, and then his thumb brushed Hal's cheekbone. Hal swallowed. "I just meant. . . is this enough for you to. . ."

In answer, Bruce took Hal's hand and led it to his cock. He felt how hard he was, how hot, and Hal cupped his hand around him, rubbing him harder. Bruce's fingers dug into the back of his neck. "We'll call that a yes," Hal said with a smirk, and Bruce snorted. He really did want to suck him, but he really didn't want to leave the circle of his arms, or stop kissing him. Bruce's motion against him was a bit faster now. The bed was swaying, but it wasn't like they were getting out of hand. They were being quiet as teenagers in an upstairs bedroom. He told himself it was because he wanted Clark to get his rest.

Hal pulled him close, and rubbed against him harder. "Your cock feels. . . really good," Hal panted.

"Mmmn," Bruce groaned.

"Shh, you're gonna scare the fish."

"Don't care." Bruce rolled onto his back and pulled Hal with him. Fuck, but that felt good. He wanted to—

"Why are you holding back," Bruce whispered. Hal tucked his head into Bruce's shoulder and just let himself grind, just humped against that glorious thick cock and body, that body that he couldn't get enough of, couldn't touch enough of. 

"Can I—are you—"

"Yeah," Bruce sighed, and Hal tried not to be the guy who came first, but he was, he totally was that guy. He cried out, he knew he did, but there was a hand that came over his mouth, and Hal groaned into it. He was being quickly rolled to the side, and Bruce was riding him now, just like he had ridden Bruce, and he felt the shudder of Bruce's orgasm against his body. They kept their arms wrapped tight around each other. 

The gentle swaying of the bed, the breeze ruffling his hair off the ocean, the warm blankets and the deeper warmth of Bruce's body against him. . . it all meant that despite being covered in sticky cum, there was no way he was moving. "Hey Bruce," he murmured.

"Mm." Bruce hand was stroking his hair. 

"Can I tell you something?"

"Mm."

They had just dry humped in a bed for fifteen awkward minutes. How the fuck was that the hottest thing he had ever done? But somehow it was. He weighed how to say that, if he should say that. "This was always okay with me too," he said.

Bruce's hand stopped stroking him. The arms tightened on him, and Hal tightened his arms, and yes, by now they were probably glued together in some gross seminal concoction, but too fucking bad, he was never moving from this spot. 

He must have drifted off, which was not surprising considering he had gotten almost no sleep last night. H wasn't sure how long he dozed, but the sun wasn't that much farther up the horizon when he woke to a tremendous earthquake, the unmooring of the tectonic plate from its foundations as the world shook and swayed.

"Assholes," Clark said genially from beside him, where he had crashed onto the bed too. Hal raised his head. 

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "Thought we were quiet."

Clark cocked a brow. "I'll leave you to imagine what your heartbeats sounded like." And he rolled over, shifting closer to Hal. "You going back to sleep?"

"Um. . .not now, I guess?"

"Awesome. Bruce will be out for hours," he said, with a nod at the sleeping form on the other side of Hal. Bruce made some inarticulate noise and burrowed away from them.

"Turn. Out. _Light_ ," it sounded like, and Clark laughed.

"That light is called the sun, you big baby. Go inside if you want to sleep."

Bruce made another, angrier noise, and pressed a pillow over his head. Clark laughed again. "Come on," he said, nudging Hal. "Let's go make some breakfast. He'll be out until lunch, at least, and that's only if we make a lot of noise. How are you with omelettes?"

"I love omelettes," he said on a yawn.

"I meant _making_ them, lazybones. Come on, come play with me," he said, bounding up and tugging Hal with him. Too late it occurred to Hal, as he was stumbling fuzzy-eyed into the kitchen, that he might very well have been invited as entertainment for Clark, but maybe not of the sort he had originally thought. What sort of cruel God put a morning person in a friends-with-benefits arrangement with a nocturnal creature like Bruce?

"I actually like sleep too," he said, but Clark was thrusting armfuls of eggs into his hands and whistling loudly. In just a minute Clark would be slapping him on the back and telling him to buck up, tiger. "I need to be honest here," Hal said, as Clark shoved him in the direction of the stove. "My skill set for this vacation is really more the Continual Sex Orgy part than the Boy Scout Camp part."

With a whoosh of air, the eggs were out of his hand, and he was being pressed against the wall. Clark's hands were pinning him. Those extraordinary eyes had gone some shade of blue Hal didn't even recognize, and his mouth was an inch from Hal's. "Don't worry," he murmured. "We will be returning to the other part shortly. What were you thinking, that I was just going to lie there and listen to the two of you get off and it wouldn't get me hot?"

He pressed against Hal, and Hal felt the heat of that cock, like a metal rod burning through his thin shorts. Hal gasped, reached for him, but that mouth had moved to his ear. "But first," he gusted against Hal's ear, shivering his spine. "Omelettes."

He was gone before Hal could blink, back at the fridge whistling and working and pulling out more ingredients, rifling through spices and plundering the cabinets. "You are. . . a very strange man," Hal said.

"You have no idea," Bruce growled with a murderous glare at the both of them. He was staggering through on his way back to the bedroom, a pillow clutched to him, his hair now entirely perpendicular to his head. He was trailing a blanket, and he kicked the door firmly shut behind him. Hal might have been mistaken, but it also sounded like a lock being turned. 

"Hand me that cilantro," Clark said cheerily.


	3. Chapter 3

"You don't like the water," Clark said incredulously.

"Not really. I mean, it's not that I dislike it. I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. I'm just not crazy about it, let's put it that way."

They were stretched in the soft sand by the lagoon, warmed by the late morning sun, luxuriating on giant fluffy bath towels stolen from the guest bathrooms. Hal had not exactly packed for this trip, and his clothes were currently locked in the bedroom with a cranky sleeping Bruce anyway, so at some point after breakfast he had just said fuck it and gone as bare-ass naked as Clark. Hal had his arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun, but Clark obviously had no such worries. He was propped on his elbow watching Hal bemusedly. "But you've lived most of your life in California," he said. 

"I didn't say I _couldn't_ swim. I just said, I don't like to."

"Well. . . we could fly out over the water then. Just sort of hover. If a fish splashes you I will punch him right in the gills."

"How can one person be such a dork. Seriously, have you never heard of just lying around and doing nothing?"

"Sure I have, it's called sleeping. I'm not going to do it in the middle of the day."

"You're exhausting," Hal mumbled, rolling over the other direction. Clark crawled over onto his towel with him and draped a heavy arm across Hal's middle. 

"I should let you rest," he said.

"Mm hm."

"But maybe there are one or two things I could do to help you rest."

Hal peeked around his arm. "I'm listening."

"Close your eyes. You're supposed to be resting."

Hal complied, and he felt Clark snug against his backside, pressing against him. The arm was still around him. He could feel the warmth of Clark's breath on the back of his neck. "You know," Clark said softly, "I feel like last night, you might have thought there was only one thing I like in bed. The truth is, I like a lot of things."

"I'm definitely listening."

"I'm good at a lot of things too."

"Go on."

Clark's hand was stroking his abdomen, just gently. "Is this all right?"

"Mmm hmmm."

"So, the thing that occurs to me, is that your cock is pretty big."

Hal raised his head at that. "Not one of your smoother pick-up lines. And not a line anyone's going to fall for, coming from you, big boy."

"No, what I meant was—look, there are a lot of things about my body that are a little. . . different from human physiology, all right? And given your size, there might be some things you have not. . . experienced in life, is all I'm saying, things that maybe I could do for you. Because there are some things I have that are exactly like human physiology, and some things that aren't. And one of those things I don't have, happens to be a gag reflex."

Hal pushed up on his elbows. "You have my complete attention."

"Not yet I don't. Lie back down."

And that was how Hal ended up lying on his back by a South Pacific lagoon, getting sucked off by Superman. If his memoir needed an opening line, that would definitely be a contender. "Oh my God," he panted, when Clark's tongue started licking him.

"I haven't even done anything yet."

"No no, I know, just—practicing."

Clark laughed, and went back to slowly licking and suckling Hal to full hardness, just little teasing sucks. When Hal was all the way to hard, he pulled off and studied Hal's cock, slick with his spit. "I want you to come in my mouth," he said.

Hal's cock twitched, ached. "Okay, not a problem. Just—"

"Patience," Clark said, rubbing a thoughtful thumb on his balls, squeezing them a little. 

"Right. Um, in case you're forgetting, I'm not the one with the denial kink, that's the other guy."

Clark's finger was stroking the length of his shaft now. "I know who you are, Hal," he said. 

"Then could you please, _please_ just. . ."

"Just what?"

"Fucking _suck_ me, all right?"

"Rude," Clark said, and he climbed back up Hal, pinning him by his arms and legs. Hal was immobilized. Clark was hard, that unbelievable cock hovering just above his own. Hal watched a thin trail of precum on its tip, watched it ooze down onto his own cock, which twitched at it. 

"Fucking God," he ground out. "If you don't fucking get off of me. . ."

"If I don't," Clark said. "If I don't, I could just keep you like this while I slowly rub my cock on yours. I could cum just from that, did you know that? All of that cum, splashing down on you. I make a lot of it, you saw that last night. I could use it as lube to fuck you."

Hal gasped, tried to writhe. The wrists pinning him were like iron manacles, the weight on his legs like cinder blocks. Clark bent to his ear, and their cocks were touching now. Hal was breathing fast. "Tell me which you want," he whispered. 

"Your mouth. Oh God, your mouth."

"You got it, baby."

And Clark had released him, was sliding back down him. A suction like Hal had never felt before closed on his cock, and he cried out with what he hoped was a manly sex noise but probably was something more like the sound a second-grader made when you snapped his pencil. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," he panted, trying to get control, but it just would not stop. Clark's mouth would not stop. And it was all the way down his shaft, was the thing — no hand at the base, no line where the suction stopped. Clark was right enough, that he had never quite experienced that.

Clark only stopped long enough to slick his finger with spit and get that long thick digit up Hal's ass. Hal rode his finger and moaned, and he finally got his heels dug in into the soft sand enough to really start fucking Clark's mouth. It wasn't like he hadn't been deep-throated once or twice, but the way that worked was, the incredibly obliging person would usually manage three or four sucks that way, and then they needed a breather, or more usually they were done. But Clark didn't quit, and Clark didn't need a breather. Hal tried to warn him he was about to come, but his orgasm slammed into him so hard he didn't really have time for that — he just came in heavy spurts down Clark's throat, and kept fucking his mouth, his ass clenched around that finger that just kept up the slow steady rub until Hal was drained, destroyed. 

He fell back onto the towel like a limp dishrag. Clark sat back on his heels and watched him, a little smile on his face. Clark often had a small smile on his face, and before Hal had always thought of it as a good-natured, easygoing smile. He didn't know how it had never occurred to him that Clark's smile was slightly sinister. 

"Tell me," Hal panted. "Tell me how you do this."

"It's all in the wrist."

"Smartass. I meant." He paused, still winded. "Holy Jesus. Okay. I meant, tell me how you and Bruce do this. I mean, what, you come to this island, you fuck each other's brains out, and then what? You just go back to your lives like none of this happened? You somehow manage to walk into a League meeting and act normal, and not spring gigantic boners?"

"Well, I'm not saying the boner thing never happens. But Bruce is pretty good at compartmentalizing, let's put it that way." Clark lay down beside Hal, smoothing the towels underneath them where Hal's pre-orgasmic flailing had rucked them up.

"Funny, that's kind of what he says about you."

Clark gave a short laugh. "Yeah, well, Bruce says a lot of things. That's something you'll learn."

Hal lay back and contemplated the sky. The sun had retreated for a bit behind some fluffy clouds, which dimmed the light enough so it wasn't blinding to look out on the water. Clark was still hard, but he seemed to be ignoring it for the moment — and in truth Hal was a little nervous about what Clark might feel like getting up to. Taking that cock when he wasn't cranked did not sound like a fun job.

"It's not like I met the man yesterday," Hal said. "I am aware his perception of reality is not always what you might call accurate."

"Really," Clark said. "Says the man who called himself a fucktoy."

"Well you little shit. How much of our conversation were you listening to anyway?"

"Enough."

"Something I'll learn," Hal said. "So does that mean I'm going to get invited back?"

Clark was quiet for a while. It was funny how the man could look so serious and contemplative while sprouting a flagpole the size of the Washington Monument. "That depends," he said.

"On what?"

"On what you want."

 _The three of us never to leave this island, forever_ , was his first answer. A world that didn't need any of the three of them, a world where Gotham was not a terrifying shithole, a world where he had never heard of the Guardians or Oa or the Lantern Corps, a world where the earth was doing just fine without Superman, thank you. Of course, that wouldn't be a world where the three of them had ever met. "Yeah, I dunno," Hal said eventually.

"What don't you know?"

"I don't know if I can do what you guys do. I don't know if I can do the whole 'back to our normal lives' thing." He watched the sun emerge only to glide behind another fluffy cloud, and wondered if that meant there was going to be rain before too long. He also wondered how long he could go before he dared a look at his phone, and the seventeen thousand angry messages from Carol. "Hey, here's a question," he said.

"Hm."

"What can you hear, when you listen to heartbeats? You said you were listening to ours, when we were. . . . you know."

"Fucking."

"Well, we weren't exactly doing that, we were just fooling around."

"You were fucking, trust me. And what I hear depends on who I'm listening to. If I know the person, that means I know their heartbeat. I can hear when it does something different. When it speeds up, the rate at which it speeds up or slows down, how long it stays that way. . . it tells me a lot."

"Interesting. So you lied, earlier."

"Did I?"

"You said you woke up because of our heartbeats. But you were awake before that, if you were listening to our conversation."

Clark rolled Hal's direction and studied him. He had that same thoughtful look on his face. "I didn't lie," he said.

"Oh really."

"Your heartbeats did wake me up. But I never said it was the sex."

Hal thought about that one. "So. . . people's heartbeats change when they talk? When they interact?"

"No, not generally. But yours do."

"Okay, that's. . . interesting."

"It is," Clark said. "And if I'm a liar, you're one too, Mr. 'I don't have any interesting secrets.'"

"I didn't say I didn't have secrets, just that they're not very interesting ones. And also, how exactly are you having rational conversation at this moment? Is there any blood left in your brain? Because goddamn, look at you." He glanced at Clark's cock, which was practically purple now.

"It's fine," Clark said.

"Ahhh. . . okay, that's one word for it. Come here."

Clark scooted closer, and Hal gave his cock a lazy tug, just a loose grip. He could feel it pulse in his hands. He wondered if that was different too, Kryptonian blood pressure. "You don't have to," Clark whispered.

"Come here, idiot," Hal said. "Let's make out and stuff."

It was funny, looking back on it, how much kissing there was in those twenty-four magical hours on the island. Hal had never been much for kissing, especially guys. He didn't dislike it, but it wasn't something he fantasized about, particularly. Also, guys tended to be spectacularly bad at it. Kissing women was awesome, because they knew what they were doing. Guys mainly just smushed that faces at you and ate your tongue for a while, as the prelude to shoving their dick at you. But not these two. With these guys, kissing was like a religion, and Hal learned that he actually liked kissing a man — more than just liked it. Clark's kisses were tender and inscrutable and strangely unpredictable just when you thought you knew what was happening next, not unlike the man himself. 

And Bruce's kisses. . .

They gave up waiting for him to wake up, and after a few more hours lazing by the lagoon — and a few more make-out sessions — Hal and Clark headed back up to the house. "He's slept enough," Clark declared, and pushed back the bedroom door. The door had in fact been locked, because Hal heard the splintering noise the knob made when Clark casually turned it.

Bruce grunted and burrowed further under the pillows "You're going to pay for that," came the muffled voice.

"Bite me," Clark said, flopping on the bed beside him. 

"You've been spending too much time around Hal."

Clark's laugh was loud, and Bruce's attempt to squirm away was met with a firm arm around him pulling him back. "He's not going to listen to me," Clark said. "Hal, get in here, help me wake him up."

"Oh, I don't know, I think I like all my limbs where they are." It was like watching a slightly demented man try to give chin-scratches to a tiger, watching Clark attempt to cuddle a protesting Bruce. There was some story about that — some crazy asshole in Las Vegas or somewhere who had owned pet tigers, and had gotten killed the day it had decided to rip his face off. 

"Fine," Clark said. "I know a better way to wake him up anyway." And he grabbed Hal's wrist, pulled him down onto the bed with him. "Hey Bruce," he said. "Hal and I are just going to occupy ourselves over here a little, while you wake up. You take your time though."

Clark was sitting up, and Hal straddled him. Clark ran those broad hands up his back, kissed his shoulder, his collarbone. "I think I just want you to ride me," Clark said. "That's it, right there."

"A serious question here," Hal said. "What does it take to wear you out? Have you ever been like, whoa, sorry, that's enough sex for me?"

"I can answer that one for you," Bruce said. He had rolled over and was watching the two of them from behind narrow eyes. 

"Not that I'm complaining," Hal murmured, and bent to kiss Clark. He was half-hard now, and rubbing against Clark's cock felt really good — as did being in the driver's seat a little bit. "So listen," he said, kissing along Clark's jaw, down to his neck. "If there were something I wanted in this bed, how likely would I be to get it?"

"You have to ask?" Clark whispered.

"Yeah, well, everyone might not agree with you there," he said, with a glance at Bruce. Bruce looked back at him gravely, and the day fell away from him, and he was back on that swaying platform bed on the porch, discovering what being kissed by Bruce felt like. He wondered how long that would be true, and if that would be the rest of his life — the quiet meeting of their eyes, and there he would be again. 

"Tell me what you want," Bruce said, and he was wrong, it wasn't their eyes at all, it was hearing that voice, the soft, slightly groggy one. 

"I want. . ." Hal said, because for a minute he had forgotten. "I want to be the one watching."

The corner of Bruce's lip quirked, just a little. He was still watching Hal's eyes. They were still watching each other. "If that's what you want," he said. And Hal had another of those vertiginous moments when he tried to imagine Bruce saying something like that to him outside of a bedroom — like at the next League meeting when Bruce was explaining to him how bone-deep stupid his idea was, or snorting in disgust when Hal proposed a plan, if he could just imagine that voice, those words. 

"That's what I want," Hal said. "Get over here and let me watch you get fucked."

"You ought to hear him," Clark murmured. "He sounds so good."

And that was the thing about Clark — he was really hardly ever, ever wrong. He sure as hell wasn't wrong about Bruce on his back with his legs curled around Clark, his neck arched back, his mouth open, his eyes shut, as Clark just fucked the cum right out of him. Clark narrating the whole thing was maybe the best thing that had ever happened in Hal's life. 

"He won't need a hand on him, like this," Clark panted. He was doing something with his hips Hal wasn't entirely clear on — some sort of slow rolling motion, but it made Bruce's hands grab at the sheets, made the veins stand out on his neck. 

"God—damn you," Bruce choked out. Hal was lying on his stomach, and he let himself rub against the mattress, just get some friction, because the two of them were so hot, and he was so hard already just from watching them. 

"You gonna come for me?" Clark whispered.

"No," Bruce said. "It will take—more than that to—you can't—"

"Oh can't I," Clark said, and the rolling motion got faster. Bruce's hips were arching now too, and Hal's ass ached in sympathy. That glorious, enormous cock, pounding right on the gland like that—how Bruce was not shooting cum right this minute he had no idea, but he could see him holding back, could see the tightness in his neck, his arms.

"Yeah, you wanna come," Clark was saying. "You wanna get wet for me."

"No—"

"You want me to watch it."

"Fuck you, you can't—"

"When I see you come I can't stop myself. I come so hard when you come on my cock. God—fuck, _Bruce_ —" And for a second Clark almost lost it, he could see it. Clark ducked his head down, but his lip. "I'm gonna come," Clark panted. "Oh Jesus Bruce, I'm gonna come so hard in you, I'm gonna soak your fucking gorgeous ass, there's gonna be so much—"

"No—fuck— _NO_ —" And Bruce's body was a rictus of ecstasy. His cock shot cum, bled it in thick dribbles onto his abdomen, rich spurts that sounded almost painful, the way he was breathing through it with clenched teeth and a groan that made Hal rub himself faster.

"You—oh God, Bruce—" Clark had shut his eyes and given up narration, and was just holding himself still. Hal knew he was coming. He was coming long and hard into Bruce's ass, into all the secret places Hal wanted to lick, coming in those long inhuman jets that would be flowing back out and onto the mattress. What did you want to bet Bruce had like a fifteen-hundred-dollar waterproof pad on this mattress?

And now Bruce's head was turning to him. Those eyes were only half-focused. "Did you like watching?" he murmured.

"Fuck yes," Hal managed. Clark was still collapsed on top of Bruce, which looked uncomfortable in the extreme, but Bruce showed no sigs of shifting. 

"Come here," he said, and Hal scooted closer. "Closer."

"I don't—"

"Climb up here and let me finish you."

And then he was sure he knew what Bruce meant, and he practically came from it right there, but he managed to get up and straddle Bruce's chest, and he let his aching cock slide into Bruce's wet mouth. Bruce couldn't deep throat him from this angle, and maybe not from any angle, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter. There was a lazy finger rubbing against his asshole, and to be honest he wasn't sure if it was Clark's or Bruce's, and he didn't care. 

"I'm sorry, I'm gonna come," he gritted out, and Bruce swallowed him, swallowed all of it. His balls pulsed against Bruce's face. Maybe that had been Bruce's hand, because it was steadying his back now, rubbing it. He collapsed backward and into a set of arms that was definitely Clark's, and he let his eyes drift shut, awash in pleasure. It was just a stupid blow job. Why did it feel like his spine had spurted out with that last load of cum?

"You guys are fucking killing me," he breathed, when he had the power of speech again. Clark's mouth was tucked against his neck, sucking on him there, but there was another pair of hands on his thighs, stroking them. 

"You don't know the half of it," whispered that voice.


	4. Chapter 4

"Like hell," Clark said. "Like hell I will."

Hal stared at the carpet. "Please," he tried. "I have to leave in an hour, and I'm not going to have time to say good-bye, so please, will you just—"

"No," Clark said, and he crossed his arms. His eyes wouldn't stop looking at Hal, wouldn't stop gouging at him. "You have to leave in an hour, you say. And how long have you known you were going to take this assignment?"

"About a week," Hal said. His lips felt stiff, like they weren't saying words right. 

"And you absolutely have to take this assignment?"

Hal shook his head, because lying to Clark did not seem like the sort of thing that was going to work out for him. "No," he said. "I don't. I asked for it."

He could see that land in Clark's middle, could see the small flinch of it in his face. Part of that shocked him; maybe too much of him had bought Bruce's line about Kryptonians and their emotions. But he could see in Clark's face that hadn't been the answer he had been expecting. "I see," Clark said. His voice was tight.

"You don't understand," Hal tried.

"I understand all right."

Somehow, Hal doubted that. Nothing about this was going according to plan. He had come here, planning on saying a quick good-bye. And now this. Would he always get it wrong with Clark? How was it Bruce found him so easy to read? "Look," Hal said. "I just need you to tell Bruce good-bye for me, all right?"

"And why can't you do that yourself?"

"Because I—" Hal bit his lip, tried to look anywhere but at Clark's face. "I'm asking a favor," he tried.

"A favor," Clark repeated. "A favor is, can I borrow your car. A favor is, can you pick up my dry cleaning. I'll tell you what a favor is not. It's not, will you stick a knife in your best friend for me and watch him bleed."

"It's not like that. It isn't—come on, you know it's not like that."

"Is convincing yourself you're not about to break his heart the only way you can do this? Because if so, you're a son of a bitch."

"Fine," Hal said, and beneath his weariness and exhaustion his anger was stirring. He'd never heard Clark swear at him before, or just swear in cold blood like that, and he was damned if he was going to stand here and take it. "Fine. So I'm a son of a bitch, think whatever you want. But I told you before, I didn't think I could do the thing the two of you do, I couldn't do like we do on the weekends and get back to the rest of my life like it just didn't matter, when—"

"No one said it didn't matter, you idiot!"

And now Clark was angry too, and this whole thing was going so far off plan. So far off plan. Hal rubbed at his forehead, shut his eyes. "Look," he said, and he tried to keep his voice calmer. "I'm sorry. But I have a problem, all right? I have. . . a problem."

Clark was quiet, and he wondered if Clark was listening to how fast his heart was pounding, trying to hear the things he wasn't saying out loud. Maybe he was measuring the lie in rate of respiration, in the sweat evaporation rate. Not a lie, really. Just not the whole truth, because the truth was not speakable in this room. The truth was not anyone's problem but his. 

"Your problem is not a problem. The thing that you think is a problem. It's not," Clark said eventually. His voice had gone as quiet as Hal's.

"I have to go," Hal said. "Please just tell him. . ." He had not meant for his throat to close so treacherously. The words strangled and died.

"You can tell him yourself," Clark said, still just as quietly. 

"Tell him what?" He tried to keep the bitter out of his voice.

"You could start with the truth."

 _Which truth would that be, Clark? The truth that I'm so deep in love with Bruce I don't see a way out? The truth that I can't share him anymore, that I can't strangle every feeling I have and pretend it doesn't exist, that I can't pretend I'm fine with it when I watch the two of you together because I'm a selfish ungrateful bastard?_ He bit his lip to the blood this time. A son of a bitch he might be, but he was not such a dick as to say those words out loud. Not to Clark, not to Bruce, not to anyone. 

"I have to go," he said instead. "I know you don't understand. I'll be back, it's not like I'm gone forever."

"Liar," Clark said, and his voice was just as sad and calm as Hal's.

"Yeah, maybe so." He held his hand out to Clark, and had no expectation that Clark would take it, but he did. He grasped Hal's hand and held it tight. This friendly handshake was not going according to plan either. "I'm sorry," Hal said, barely managing to get the words out.

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah. I know. I just—I'll see you later, okay?" And with some strength he didn't know he had, he released Clark's hand and made himself walk out of Clark's apartment, not looking back, shutting the door behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

It was when he was hovering on the edge of the Dantoid asteroid belt, watching a last precious shipment of cargo to the beleaguered colonists, that the call came through. His communicator was behaving bizarrely. It was chiming at him, almost like a. . .

" _Hello?_ " he said.

"Hal? Are you there?"

He couldn't think what to do other than blink stupidly into space. "I. . . Carol?" he said.

"Yeah, it's me. Listen, I need to talk to you."

He looked around him, like maybe Kilowogg or someone was hiding behind a nearby space rock, laughing at him. Was he hallucinating? It had been a rough six months, after all. Better men than he had cracked up. He was floating in the middle of space, and he had just taken a phone call. Because either he had just sawn loose a couple of neurons, or Carol Ferris just rang his cell a few galaxies over. 

"Carol, how the hell are you — what the hell is going on here? Your cell just rang through to my communicator. In _space_."

"Yes, you're very special, you're in space, I know I know. Listen, I have some serious problems here that I need to talk to you about."

"You — Carol. There is no way this is possible, according to any known laws of physics."

He heard her sigh on the other end, and it was just as rattly in his ear as if he'd been late for work, speeding up the PCH. "Well, obviously it's physically possible, otherwise it wouldn't be happening. I just acquired some signal boosters, is all."

"Some signal boosters," he said. "To the _Epsilon_ Galaxy. Jesus Christ, I'm gone for six months and Verizon really decides to stop fucking around, don't they?"

"Can we please move past this, or would you like to waste some more time here? Because I have an actual problem, and we have got to talk about this."

The last of the Morlonn cruisers was quietly disengaging from the docking clamps, its hulking grace gliding behind an especially large asteroid tumbling across Hal's field of vision. The colonists had enough supplies now to hold out against the next Varangi attack, and if these scrambling shields held long enough, then no one would find out about the breach of treaty Hal had just been party to, and maybe if they were luck no raiding party would decide to rain death on the four thousand men, women and children of Cyrus Seven. But Carol Ferris had an actual problem. "Okay, shoot," he said.

"So Ferris Air just got its hands on the most unbelievable machine you have ever, _ever_ seen. Okay, remember in season one of the X-Files, when Mulder finally sees the alien spacecraft, and it's like right over top of him, and it's big and black and sort of triangle-shaped, only he doesn't end up remembering any of it, because of course those bastards drug him and if Scully hadn't been there to—"

"Carol! What the ever-living _fuck_ are you talking about!"

"The plane. The plane that is sitting on my flight deck right now. _That_ bird. I mean _that_ is what she looks like. Hal, she is carved out of solid rock and she purrs like a sleeping kitten. And she pulls fifteen g's."

"Carol. That's not. . . possible," he found himself saying again.

"It wasn't. Just last week, it wasn't. Last week, I lived in a world where I had never seen a plane do the things this baby apparently does. And now, I live in that world. Or I would, if you were here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—" and he could hear her rustling on the other end, hear the slam of her office door and the lowering of her voice. "I mean that like hell am I letting anyone else climb in my gorgeous baby. Hal, do you know what it means for Ferris Air that we were the ones to gain testing rights for this plane? Experimental prototype my foot, this is top secret, light-years ahead, razor-edge tech we are talking about here, and I got us the testing rights, _I_ did that."

"That's. . . amazing, Carol, really, I'm glad that—"

"Shut up, will you just shut up and listen to me? I mortgaged everything to get us these testing rights, _everything_. And if I don't put my best test pilot in that plane, and if a mistake is made somewhere, and billions of dollars in sensitive government tech explodes in the air? Then I'm finished. Everything I've built, everything my father built, it's all finished."

He was silent, watching the quiet drift of the asteroids. He knew where this was going. "You mortgaged the company," he said.

"Please," she said. "Hal. Please. There is no one else who can get across the wings of this bird. You are a selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic—"

"Are you sure you understand how asking somebody a favor works? And also, those all mean the same thing."

"That is how much I mean it. Hal Jordan, you are a prick and a half, but there is no one on God's earth who can fly the way you do. My father had never seen anything like it, and neither have I, though if you ever remind me I said that I will absolutely deny it. You were born to fly this plane."

"Carol," he sighed.

"No. No. Do not tell me no. Do not pretend that you are about to tell me no. When have I ever asked anything of you? When have I ever done that? But I'm asking it now. I am asking this. Hal. I need you."

There was an undeniable peace to it, floating in the velvet dark of space, wrapped only in the green glow from the ring. It was easy to believe, out here, that nothing could ever touch you again. That you were insulated from everything, that this was the only real world. Carol was silent on the other end, and he knew she wouldn't say "please" again, or beg any more. 

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Give me thirty-six Earth hours."

"Thank you," she said softly, and he heard in her voice how much she had not believed he would say yes. He wasn't sure whether that pissed him off, or made him unbearably sad. Because running was what Hal Jordan did best, and when you most needed him, that was when you could least expect him to be there. Maybe that was what Carol would have said yesterday, if anyone had asked her. 

Carol, and maybe some other people too.

* * *

And then, because he couldn't bear it any longer, he walked into the Cave two days after he got back. Just walked in. Six months gone, and not a phone call, not a text, nothing. He had just dropped off the face of the earth — literally — and there were only two rational responses when somebody pulled some shit like that on you: you either looked right through them like your eyes were carved out of iceblocks, or you punched them in the fucking face. Either one of those, Hal was prepared for. 

What he wasn't prepared for, was what actually happened.

He had no idea if Bruce would be home or not. A non-asshole would have called. A non-asshole wouldn't have left in the first place. Invading the man's most personal and secluded space, probably not the best way to go either. But all he could think or feel was the need to see Bruce. He had to see him. Like a slow bleed in the gut he had to see him; all the long slow bleed of the last six months. So he walked in, and he steeled himself to Bruce's icy thousand-yard glare, or the freight train of his fist. 

Bruce was there, all right. Standing at a console, not actually looking at a monitor, but leafing through some print-outs. Cowl pushed back, face abstracted, hair quite a bit mussed — and longer? Had he not had it cut? How the fuck had Hal forgotten how beautiful he was?

Bruce glanced up at the footstep, and froze.

"I—" Hal started, but his throat clenched shut, because yes, he had forgotten how beautiful Bruce was, and what it felt like when those eyes bored through you, and what words had he been planning to say anyway? What had he reasonably hoped to accomplish? 

Bruce's scowl burned right through him like blue fire, held him pinned. This would be the moment for Hal to say something, do something. Anything but just stand there like the fucking idiot he was.

In three strides Bruce had covered the distance between them. It would be the fist, then, and no more than he deserved. He deserved the full force of that gauntlet landing right on his jaw, and he was right — it knocked the wind clean out of him. Knocked it right out, only somehow it wasn't a fist but Bruce's whole arms, his arms crushing Hal, crushing him right to him, and Hal could only hang on to those shoulders just as tight, and try for words that didn't come, and he couldn't find the breath for the words anyway because of the mouth that covered his, and the kiss that ate his air.


	6. Asked and Answered

"So you're not mad," Hal mused. He was lying in about the only non-sweatsoaked corner of the huge bed, staring a bit dazed at the ceiling. 

"Oh, I'm mad," Bruce said. 

Hal turned his head to look at him. He was a wreck. A beautiful, delicious wreck, but a wreck nonetheless. Well, that was what three solid hours of fucking would do to a person. "You are?"

"Oh yes."

"We just haven't gotten there yet?"

"I had other things on my mind." Bruce had reached over to the endtable and was swigging from a water bottle. He handed one to Hal, who took it gratefully. Somehow that struck him as funny, that in the bedside cabinet of this incredible bedroom, which looked like something out of Downton fucking Abbey, there was something as homely as a stash of water bottles. 

"Okay," Hal said. "So, yes, I left. But you forget, I also came back."

Bruce snorted. "Hey," Hal said, nudging him with a lazy knee. "I want some credit."

"You wouldn't have come back, if you hadn't been forced to."

Hal was quiet a minute, examining the little carved thingies on the ceiling. "That was you," he said. "You patched Carol through to the Watchtower's long-range comm."

"Yes," Bruce said. 

"That was manipulative."

"Manipulative is just another word for effective."

"Right, because directly talking to people, that's out of the question?"

"You mean, like you do?"

Hal subsided back into quiet, because yeah, Bruce was probably right on that one. "She doesn't know it was League tech," Bruce offered. "In fairness, she really does think I patched her through to a new satellite connection." He was still watching Hal. "Hers was the only call I thought you would take," he said. "And I'd waited long enough."

"The plane," Hal said. "Did you manipulate that too? Was that a Wayne Tech plane?"

"Yes," Bruce said levelly. "It was."

"Jesus Christ."

"It was not as difficult as you're imagining. The plane had been in development for years; frontlining its production was probably the wise move to make in any case. In the end, I simply made sure it was tech Carol Ferris couldn't resist, at a price she couldn't say no to."

Hal narrowed his eyes. "You undersold a flagship piece of technology so that Ferris Air could take a bite at it."

"Yes. But there were sound financial reasons for that too. It was worth it to have you on board with the project. Carol's not wrong, that you're the only adequate test pilot, for a craft like that. Your input will be invaluable in re-development."

"So you got soaked."

"A little."

"How little is little, in your world?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I want to know just how many millions you will flush down the crapper before you will agree to pick up the fucking phone. Seriously? Not only is all that insulting, and fucking manipulative as hell, it's bone-deep stupid, when all you ever had to do was call me if you wanted to talk to me."

"Oh is that so." Bruce was studying him now. "Tell me more, you hypocritical little shit, about the benefits of communication. Please go on, I'm all attention."

The thrum of Bruce's anger was a physical thing, like a wave he could feel from eighteen inches away. "You walked out," Bruce said, "and left me to rot, without a word of good-bye, and now you have the audacity to lie in my bed and lecture me, because all I ever needed to do was _call_ you?"

Hal had the decency to feel the burn of shame on that one. There was no arguing with the justice of Bruce's remark, but it was the anger behind it that shocked him. It had not really occurred to him that Bruce would be in any way actually _angry_ with him. Annoyed, yes. Irritated, even. He had said that earlier, that whole stupid _so you're not mad_ thing, not really thinking that Bruce was, in any real way, _actually_ mad.

"I'm sorry," he said, which it occurred to him he had not said yet. It was the most inadequate retort possible, but for some reason Bruce was studying him thoughtfully like he had actually said something worthwhile. They didn't say anything for a while, and then tentatively Hal reached down and laced his fingers in Bruce's, and Bruce watched their joined hand, and he did not yank his hand away. 

"Now you tell me why," Bruce said, after a long while of silence, when Hal was beginning to think they wouldn't talk any more, maybe not ever. His voice was quieter now, more tired. 

"You mean. . . why I left."

"No. I know why you left."

"You do."

"Yes. I want to know why you came back. The real answer, not the made-up one about Carol. I know as well as you do that if you'd been determined not to come back, nothing she could have said would have made you."

"I came back. . ." He groped for the truth even as he said, discovering it as he spoke. "I came back because I realized it didn't matter where the fuck I was, nothing had changed. I came back because I figured I could be unhappy here as well as anywhere. And because. . ."

"Because?" Bruce said, when he stopped.

 _Because the pain of not seeing you was finally worse than the pain of seeing you_ , was the true answer. But he hadn't traveled thousands of light-years back to Earth just to fuck up what he had. "Because I needed to see you," he settled on. 

Bruce was looking gravely at their joined hand again, and he was stroking Hal's with the flat of his thumb. Hal wondered what thoughts were running in that head, what thoughts they both weren't saying. On impulse he reached for that beautiful head, stroking his hair, and Bruce shifted closer, and they were kissing, just gently. 

The first time it was just the two of them in bed had been something of an accident.

He didn't count the time on the porch, that first morning after on the island — Clark had been there, or Clark's presence. It was a few months after that, and the three of them had made plans to go back to the island. Hal hadn't let himself think anything beyond the joyous fuck yeah of it, of being back there. It was just Bruce when he got there, and Bruce was frowning on his cell.

"No, of course not," he was saying. "Yes, you too. I'll tell him."

"What's wrong?" Hal said, when Bruce clicked off his phone.

"Clark got overtaken by a deadline. He can't make it."

"Oh," Hal said. 

"Not his fault. One of his colleagues is having emergency surgery, and Clark is taking over his story, but that means he has to work all weekend. Nothing he can really do about it."

"Right," Hal said. Like somehow Bruce thought he was criticizing Clark's work ethic? "Well, okay. I guess I will. . . head out then."

Bruce was studying him. "You don't have to go," he said. "The place is stocked for the weekend, and you've already cleared your schedule. You seem to like it here, so you might as well stay if you want."

"Sure," Hal said. "Okay." It was totally unclear whether Bruce was staying or not, but Bruce just strode past him, tossing his jacket on a chair. Hal figured he would stay as long as Bruce stayed, and leave when he did — he wasn't going to hang out in the man's house by himself. Or one of the man's houses. How many did he have, anyway? 

So that was how the two of them had been truly alone together for the first time. It was weirdly domestic; they had made dinner, and Hal had talked about space cop stuff, and Bruce had made the occasional remark about its intersection with the League, and together they had finished off most of a bottle of wine. Afterward they sat on the wide porch and watched the water, and Bruce had once again reached for that pack of cigarettes Hal only ever saw on the island. He leaned back in his chair and smoked with his eyes shut, holding his cigarette at the base of his fingers. 

Their talk drifted to people — to Dick, and Jason, and Dinah, and Barry. Hal noticed neither of them were mentioning Clark. Was this what cheating felt like? Were they about to cheat? And what was the deal anyway, what were the ground rules here? 

After a while Bruce got up and flicked his cigarette overboard and headed into the house. He stood at the glass doorway before he went inside. "I'm going to bed," he said. "And you know where I sleep. That's where you're welcome to sleep too, but there's no expectation you will. Do whatever you'd like."

And he was gone, leaving Hal to contemplate that one. So he waited a bit, and then he walked quietly to the door of the master suite, and pushed it back. The room was dark, and Bruce was lying in the bed, shirtless. And probably other-things-less too. Bruce pulled back the covers, and Hal slipped between them, and their lovemaking that night was wordless and slow. Definitely unlike the sort of action this bed was used to seeing, when it was the three of them. 

It was also the first time he and Bruce had actually fucked. Weird that that hadn't occurred to him before. Were they having sex with each other through Clark, or some sort of sick shit like that? He and Bruce had sucked each other off plenty of times; they had touched and fondled and humped and kissed, but somehow not this before. _If there's something I really want, then denial gets me off_ , Bruce had said not too long ago. Was their lack of fucking part of his whole denial thing, then? Or maybe it was just that when a cock like Clark's was in the room, there was such a thing as priorities.

They kissed for a long time, the sort of kissing Bruce was good at, and they were getting some good grinding going on, and then Hal on instinct reached for the lube in the drawer — he was pretty sure he could find that blindfolded — and Bruce was kissing him even harder. "Whatever you want to do," Bruce whispered, and Hal smeared some lube on Bruce's fingers and guided his hand, and then there were Bruce's thick fingers brushing at his hole. 

They fucked in intent silence, and almost complete soundlessness until the end, when Hal couldn't take it anymore. He was riding Bruce, who seemed content to lie there and run his hands up and down Hal's torso, an occasional cant of his hips making Hal's breath catch in his throat. Bruce started a gentle stroke of Hal's cock, just lightly. Neither of them were in a hurry for it to end, and they kept putting off their climax, teasing each other a little — slowing it down, pausing for kisses. It was when Hal had bent for one of those kisses that the angle caught him just right, and he had to turn his head to the side and breathe out, "Fuck."

"Yeah?" Bruce whispered. "There?"

"Just there. Fuck me right there."

"You got it," Bruce murmured, and a hand on Hal's ass was holding him firmly in place while Bruce fucked up into him, fast hard strokes that had Hal gasping. 

" _Fuuuuck_ ," he moaned. He jerked his own cock rough and fast, and spattered his climax on Bruce's chest, his fingers practically seizing up. Bruce made a kind of gasping sound, and rolled them, and suddenly Hal was underneath him and Bruce was just fucking into him. He tucked his head into Hal's shoulder and held very still, his breathing louder almost than Hal's moan, and Hal knew he was coming—coming deep in him, coming in those long slow spurts Hal had tasted in his mouth before but never inside him like this. They stayed tightly curled like that for a long time, and only slowly drifted loose, only to wrap back around each other under the covers. 

He had woken up in the middle of the night, a cold start. Every now and again he had dreams where he was in a flat spin, headed out to the ocean, and he had lost control, all his instruments screaming at him — most often when he was sleeping somewhere he wasn't used to. He woke coughing and gasping, and there was a steady hand on his back. He lay awake for a while after that, and then he realized Bruce was awake too, and Bruce rolled over and they started kissing again, quietly. This time when he reached for the lube, Bruce took it from him, and rolled over, and that was how he had ended up fucking Bruce for the first time. 

That first time, out on the porch swing, he had asked Bruce if there was something more exciting he wanted him to be doing. But now he knew better. Now he knew that Bruce liked quiet, and he liked dark, and he liked slow. So that was how Hal fucked him, and to the end of his days he would never forget the magic of Bruce going boneless underneath him, his mouth opening on a stutter of pleasure — pleasure Hal was bringing him, pleasure only Hal was bringing him. 

Toward dawn they fell asleep again, and in the minutes before dawn Hal was awake, because waking with the dawn was what his worthless body did. He padded out to the porch like before, and he found Bruce's pack of illicit smokes, and he lit one and smoked it in silence as he watched the sun glide over the water. 

He had contemplated the need for a shower, but the hollows of his fingers still smelled like Bruce, and every time he lifted the cigarette to his mouth he could smell Bruce, and he didn't want to wash off the smell.

That was when he had first known he had a problem. 

And today, here they were in Bruce's bed. All his running away, all his refusal to name things, and it had gotten him nowhere. He had ended up back where he had begun. Or not begun, really, because this was the first time he had been in Bruce's bed in Bruce's actual house. His real bedroom — a bedroom real enough to be a little messy, to have stacks of things on tables, to look lived in. It still looked like a Renaissance pope lived here, but this was probably as real as shit got, in Bruce's world. 

They lay there in thoughtful silence, and Bruce was watching him, but that was what Bruce did, a lot of the time. Hal lifted Bruce's hand and wove his own with it tighter, studying the effect. He was much tanner than Bruce, who somehow didn't tan, ever. 

Bruce's phone trilled, and Bruce reached over for it on the endtable. Hal watched the lines on Bruce's face soften as he read the text, and that was enough to tell him who it was from. Bruce gave a small exhalation that might have been a laugh, and handed the phone to Hal.

_Okay, me now please? Seriously, I've been good. I've waited. Bruce, I know you like it slow, but come on._

Hal grinned and typed an answer. _Get your sorry ass over here_ , he wrote. _HJ._

He handed the phone back to Bruce, who was still watching him. 

"If I could have this," Hal finally said. "Not all the time. But if I could just have this. I wouldn't ask for more."

"Who taught you not to ask for more?"

It was an unanswerable question, and Hal wasn't sure what answer Bruce expected. "I'm not sure what you—" he began, and then his own phone was buzzing. He bent over the edge of the bed and rummaged through his pants until he found it. He had expected it to be Carol, yelling at him because he had left a dust particle on the instrument panel. It was Clark.

 _You mean that?_ read the text. _If you guys need more time, I can do that too. All you ever have to do is tell me. Your call._

 _I mean it_ , he wrote, and tossed the phone overboard. Could it really be that simple?

"Okay," Hal said. "I'm asking. I want more."

"Done," Bruce said. 

"Wait. . . just like that?"

"Just like that." 

It was Hal's turn to watch him closely. "And if I said, I want us to spend some time with Clark too, just not all the time, and only when it's the two of us together because I am a jealous as hell, ungrateful, poorly socialized son of a bitch?"

Bruce's smile was more of a quirk in the corner of his mouth. "I have some acquaintance with being not only ungrateful and poorly socialized, but jealous as hell. So I think you're in good company."

"Well fuck," Hal said, because damn. He couldn't figure out now why he hadn't just had this conversation six months ago. He couldn't remember what his reasons were. Oh yeah — he hadn't thought Bruce would say yes. And now that made no sense to him, that he would have thought that. Had he not been paying attention, from the very first minute? Bruce was as sick in love with him as he was with Bruce, and only an idiot would have missed that, but apparently there was no end to how much he was prepared to miss. He wanted to laugh with it. There was a sort of golden weight in the center of his chest, a strange unaccustomed thing that was also a kind of buoyance slipping into all his limbs. 

Was this what happiness felt like?

"Hang on," he said, and dove back over for his phone. _Hey Clark_ , he texted. _Give us like twenty more minutes. I'll make him go fast this time, I swear._

 _Lies, lies, lies,_ came the reply. And then an utterly characteristic smiley at the end of it. It was a fucking winky-face. Hal barked a laugh and chucked the phone. 

"To return to my previous point," he said, and climbed on top of Bruce, whose arms steadied and held him.


End file.
